


When the Abyss Yawns

by CheshireSense (cywscross)



Series: Horoscope Drabbles [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Captivity, Don't copy to another site, Dystopia, Future Fic, Gen, Ichigo vs. Gotei 13, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Betrayal, Post-Dystopia, Pre-Slash, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 23:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17354276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/CheshireSense
Summary: When you lock something up, make sure they don’t have an extra set of keys.





	When the Abyss Yawns

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** _Libra: A fortress city so vast and labyrinthine, nobody remembers what lies within its deepest vault._

 

He lands, in a fortress city so vast and labyrinthine, nobody remembers what lies within its deepest vault anymore.

Nobody is left to remember, except him.

Kisuke picks his way through the winding streets, ignoring the sun-bleached bones littering the cobbled roads, uncaring even when his end destination takes him down alleys cloaked in darkness.

If the shadows were going to eat him too, they would’ve done so already. He’s been here too long for their master to not know there’s someone alive walking through the city once more.

The city was great, once, filled with civilians and soldiers and high nobility. Kisuke still remembers it bustling with activity, rich with colour and wealth, its people safe behind its high walls and army, and each military division under the proud command of a captain, full to the brim with veteran officers and fresh graduates, confident in their combined strength as the mightiest military power of the three realms.

Then one of their own brought a war to their doorstep, a betrayal that caught them all off-guard.

They still won. The war isn’t why there’s nothing left of the Gotei 13 anymore.

They won. But they lost too, to their own fear and hubris, because the weapon that won them that war grew too powerful and frightened them too much, and so once they no longer needed him, they bound his powers, chained his will, tossed him into the deepest hole they had at their disposal, and then they did their best to forget him.

Some turned away out of shame. Others moved on out of relief, no longer having to worry about a weapon with a mind of its own, too headstrong and opinionated and wild to have ever bowed to them if allowed to be left to its own devices.

Locking it up was for the best. That way, it wouldn’t ever be able to turn on them on a mere whim.

Or so they thought.

The city is empty now. There are survivors, probably, fled from this once-great city when it became clear that even their vaunted Shinigami couldn’t figure out what was picking them off one by one, let alone how to stop it.

Kisuke knew. Well, he didn’t know how to stop it - he doesn’t think it _could_ be stopped - but he knew who was responsible. The Shinigami probably did too; they just didn’t want to admit it.

Their pride has ever been their downfall. To admit they’d lost control of the very weapon they were confident they could subdue and contain was to admit defeat, to admit they were wrong, to admit they had failed, and those have always been things the Gotei was never very good at.

But Kisuke knew the moment Shinji managed to slip him one last message via Hachigen and a forbidden Kidou that put the Visored in a coma, one he still hasn’t woken up from—

_“We’ve lost. We deserve it. Get him out if you can.”_

That was a year ago.

Twenty-five years ago, a month after the war ended, Ichigo went to visit his friends in Seireitei one afternoon, and a mere hour later, the very foundations of the world rocked with the force of the Heaven’s Shield being activated - an Artefact that rivalled the King’s Seal in power, and denied access between dimensions to anyone without official permission to pass between the Human and Spiritual worlds, the keys of which were embedded in the very souls of every Shinigami officer, incapable of being removed except with a corresponding key held by the Soutaichou himself. No exceptions, no loopholes.

Kisuke would know that too. He lost count of the number of Shinigami he captured and peeled apart and drenched his hands in, all in increasingly desperate attempts to force a way back into Soul Society. But nothing worked, the backdoors he created after his exile had likewise been rendered useless, and in the end, he was forced to do it the old-fashioned way - layer by layer, spell by spell, unravelling a gift from the gods one seal at a time.

And it’s taken him twenty-five years, but he’s finally done it - cracked the defenses of a Royal Artefact wide open, _broke_ it in a way everyone thought was impossible, and now here he is, back in his old home, every building untouched but utterly empty in this graveyard of a city swallowed by shadows.

His feet take him to the First Division, and then the Central Underground Prison, and then he stops. He was Onmitsukidou once, so he knew where to get his hands on a set of keys for the first five levels, and he thinks Benihime will be enough to get past the next three, even if he has to destroy this entire prison to do it, but when he reaches out for the gates, they swing open under the barest of touches, and the yawning abyss on the other side dare him to enter.

Kisuke simply pockets the keys, takes a breath, and steps through.

Down and down and down he goes. Nothing hinders him, no doors, no traps, not even Aizen, who should’ve been here. Kisuke suspects he too has long since fallen prey to the darkness.

Kisuke alone remains unscathed. While the shadows seem to whisper in his ears and press icy fingers to his skin, they do not stop him.

There is a ninth level, below Muken, a timeless sealed vault known only to the Soutaichou and Central 46. Even Kisuke only knows of it through Yoruichi, who had family in the judiciary branch of Seireitei, who once still reported to her. Kisuke’s never seen it, but it requires traversing through the endless void of the eighth level to an entrance that only someone holding the proper key could find.

Kisuke doesn’t have the key. He was fully prepared to ram his way through if need be.

He doesn’t need to. Even in the infinite darkness, the shadows herd him on, guiding his steps, until his hands are sweeping over the smooth surface of a set of doors that shake with the force of the prisoner it holds within.

This is the one door that does not budge for him, the one door that even the shadows have not been able to breach directly.

That matters little to Kisuke. He steps back, draws his Zanpakutou, and lets his Crimson Princess _deconstruct_ the door. Even for her, it’s a struggle. The vault rebels, the seals reject the outside tampering, but Kisuke hasn’t come this far just to stop now, he hasn’t stopped in _twenty-five years_ , and Benihime reflects his resolve, tightening her grip with Kisuke’s reiatsu pushing her onward, and finally _shredding_ the prison door with an ear-ringing shriek of metal being wrenched apart.

There’s a beat of silence, then two. The darkness only grows darker. A rasp of a chuckle reaches his ears.

Kisuke calls out with a cautious sort of trepidation, “Ich-”

And then-

He doesn’t even see it happen. One moment he’s still standing at the entrance of the ninth level of Soul Society’s deepest prison; the next, light explodes, momentarily blinding him, the wind roars in his ears, he’s vaguely aware of his feet leaving the ground, and then he’s blinking white spots and tears from his eyes and choking around the hand wrapped around his throat and pinning him to the side of a cliff.

“Ichi-” He gasps out as he finally gets his first look at Kurosaki Ichigo, twenty-five years after he unknowing waved the boy through his Tenkai Kecchu for the last time. Black reiatsu ripples around him like the shadows he’s gained absolute control over, more black streaks his shaggy orange hair, and red eyes that glitter with something like insanity stare back at him with all the boundless rage of a wildfire. His old Shihakushou hangs off him in strips, a metal collar - the chain broken - sits around his neck, and the seals that must’ve been applied directly onto his body no longer glow with power but remain carved into his flesh all the same.

The hand tightens, and black begins creeping into Kisuke’s vision even as he thrashes futilely under Ichigo’s unyielding grip. He’s lost Benihime somewhere, and he doesn’t even have breath enough to beg.

_Why beg? You knew what might happen. Even if you didn’t put him in that vault, you’re the one who made him. You knew there would be no forgiveness. Not for this._

And then, inexplicably, Ichigo lets go.

Kisuke collapses to the ground, coughing and wheezing for air, chest heaving and struggling to orient himself as he’s pulled back from the brink of unconsciousness.

By the time he looks up, throat bruised, tongue still heavy in his mouth, Ichigo is peering down at him with a blank sort of curiosity.

“I know you,” The familiar voice is hoarse with lack of use, but Kisuke recognizes it anyway.

“You do,” Kisuke agrees, suppressing a grimace at the way the words scrape up his sore throat.

Ichigo cocks his head, bird-like, animal, all instinct. “You freed me.”

Despite the situation, Kisuke can’t help but smile. “You did half the job already. But you’ve never belonged in a cage. I was only fixing a mistake.”

A long stretch of silence follows, long enough for Kisuke to clamber back onto his feet.

Ichigo watches him, unblinking, but he does not stop him.

Kisuke smiles again, small and worn around the edges, but it feels - even to himself - hopeful, as he holds out a hand. “Shall we go home, Ichigo?”

Ichigo stares at his hand. A minute passes. Then two. Then three.

Kisuke does not waver, and when a trembling palm finally skates against his own, he folds his hand around it, gently, carefully, and does not let go as they begin to walk.

 


End file.
